[MLB-WIRELESS] Wireless networking question

[Jason Brice]

"With an access point connected to a home network switch, I find that _all_ traffic for any of my PCs (even the little printserver) is passed through the access point. "

Sounds to me link you have your AP connected to a Hub and not a Switch.

A Switch will only forward frames out of ports associated with the destination MAC address. A Hub floods frames out of all ports all the time. So if you have a switch, you might expect (as you suggest) to keep any frames not destined for the wireless part of your network, off of your AP.

Of course it gets more complicated if you have a smart switch (Cisco and a bunch of other high end switches)
What kind of switch do you have?

________________________
jason brice
senior network engineer
kiandra system solutions
level 9, 455 bourke st melbourne vic 3000
(t) +61 3 9600 1639
(f) +61 3 9600 1656



-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Hovel [mailto:joe.hovel at med.monash.edu.au] 
Sent: Tuesday, 11 March 2003 10:52 PM
To: melbwireless at wireless.org.au
Subject: [MLB-WIRELESS] Wireless networking question


I hope someone can answer a technical query for me:
With an access point connected to a home network switch, I find that _all_ traffic for any of my PCs (even the little printserver) is passed through the access point. I noticed this because the Dlink configuration/monitoring software shows continuously increasing packet numbers, irrespective of where traffic is intended. 
I guess this stands to reason, because the Dlink AP900 has no routing capacity and is happy to accept whatever traffic the switch sends it. This is not much of an issue here, because this family only ever uses two or three PCs at a time. However, when I put up my antenna and hook the AP into the local wireless group's network, then _all_ my traffic is going to "use up" bandwidth of the community wireless network, isn't it? And presumably so is everyone else's.... Many of the members at Bendigo Wireless have home or SOHO networks - so when they all connect, I'm not really expecting to have much usable bandwidth left.... The only way I can think of preventing this is with (expensive) routers at all nodes, or wireless cards in PCs with routing OS. How is Melbourne Wireless managing this? Surely not everyone has and can afford a router???? Am I missing something here? Cheers, Joe Hovel Bendigo


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